Julie Collins-Dogrul received the best paper award for, "Brokering Public Health Transnationalism on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1942-1952" at the 2007 Association for Borderlands Studies annual conference in Calgary, Canada.

Abstract

The
United States and Mexico share transnational patients, pathogens, and
pollutants in their border region. In 1942 U.S. and Mexican health
professionals belonging to NGOs and government agencies began to
formally work together to manage these problems. Over the next
decade these actors constructed a transnational organizational field
called border health
which combined transnational epidemiological understandings with
sustained cross-border professional and organizational ties.
Analysis of this period addresses the sociological problem of how
organizations embedded within bordering countries - with disparate
epidemiological profiles, public health and medical systems,
political economies, and national interests – coalesce around
transnational public health issues. Analysis of organizational
records from this decade revealed
that two organizations acted as systemic
brokers, meaning
intermediaries that span relational and cultural-cognitive
boundaries. I argue that systemic brokering explains how key
organizations span international divisions and unite heterogeneous
organizations and professionals into transnational organizational
fields.